


Filii Dei

by Witherstone



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Angst, Christianity, Control, Cruelty, Early days of Hell, God's Plan, Harm to Children, Heaven & Hell, Religion, What's Lucifer's deal with children, this gets dark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-18 12:08:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29118024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Witherstone/pseuds/Witherstone
Summary: Guilt is a double-edged sword and taking away one's control doesn't absolve them of responsibility. A story of how Lucifer's strained relationship with children came to be in the early years of Hell.TW inside. I own nothing.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 64





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> TW: child abuse, death and general cruelty of damnation. It's a dark one, please proceed with caution.

Old Testament painted God as powerful and just. New Testament added mercy and love, because after a few thousand years humans yearned for a Creator that could be a father to all, instead of a patron of his Chosen People. Projecting their own desired traits and molding God's image to a form that could be easily worshiped was such a human thing to do. 

Interpreting unreasonable actions as right, because He who is omnipotent must operate beyond human understanding. Because human understanding of His actions would deem Him insane.

He made it so all children would be born with the original sin, the ultimate and utterly unfair punishment for Eve, extended over all of her descendants forever. Hurting the most defenseless, striking dread in their parents, forcing them to submit to God's will out of the primal fear for their offspring's safety. 

And Lucifer knew, with despaired resignation, that all the silly rituals invented to coax God into a forgiving mood meant nothing to Him. No amount of sacraments and holy water could erase the fundamental envy and wrath God pointed at the disobedient. It was all predetermined, all established so long ago it would take another flood to change the rules to anything remotely humane.

Lucifer hated church and its mindless traditions, and he hated baptism the most. Taking an unaware newborn, barely more than a blind kitten filled with screams and cries, and offering it to God for all of eternity. Making the choice for the child before it was able to comprehend its meaning, out of fear of damning its soul had it died before understanding the concept. 

* * *

Hell didn't always operate on self-appointed guilt. It used to be God's personal prison where He sent those who offended Him. Then, it was a place of sinners, those who racked enough damnation points to outweigh their good deeds. 

Lucifer gritted his teeth over every innocent soul gracing his domain for calling his Father's name in vain. Soldiers following orders, but killing for their kings instead of for their Creator. Those unrepentant for extramarital sex, those who worked on Sabbath but slacked off during the week, and, his personal favorite, people who ate the wrong foods. Approved diets changed throughout the years, though he never understood why pork was such a sore subject for his Dad. 

He could never punish those people. Being sent to the dark, ashy afterworld filled with deformed demons was depressing enough, no matter how many parties he threw to distract himself and the undeserving damned. Soon it caught the eye of the upstairs society, though, and his siblings were sent to scold him with wry lectures.

Lucifer did not obey - there was nothing beyond the rock bottom to Fall to now. So his Father took away that little control ruling Hell granted him. 

The sudden influx of souls stirred his concern of another plague, apocalypse, some brutal display of power increasing humanity's already high mortality rate. But the newcomers were different now, resigned and unsurprised. They wouldn't engage with him anymore, locking themselves in dark cells carved in Hell's harsh landscape and never leaving. He visited the rooms, amazed at the variety of memories being replayed in the accomodating plane. 

He watched, trying to comprehend, and it took him hundreds of years of the subjective way time passed here. Once the realization dawned, his fury shook the ground of the domain, scaring the oldest demons into hiding. The humans were condemning themselves now. 

With the tool of guilt, no less, which his Father excelled at manipulating to force his creations into submission. Each decided their own punishment, stuck in loops replaying that they considered their worst offenses. And no matter what he tried, how much he talked to them, he couldn't do anything to change it.

Maybe it was a form of justice, a personalized penance tailored to counterweight their sins, he rationalized. Humans' psyche was complex and even if he perceived their guilt as undeserving of what they made themselves suffer for it, it could be what they truly needed.

Until the children came. 

Teenage murderers and thieves, he knew well. Forced to grow up too fast, thrown alone and desperate into adult affairs, steered by fear, ambition and greed. Adolescents faced with impossible choices, those who stole to avoid starvation or killed in self-defense gone too far. They were accountable even if death reached them before they could know better.

But when he saw narrow doors with a handle mounted uncomfortably low and the ten-year old boy closing them behind him, he could only stare in confusion. What could that child have done? Born psychopaths felt no remorse, only thrown down to him by manual selection, a security measure, courtesy of Dad. Not that He made a mistake creating the system, right? No, it was just a tweak that must've been a part of His plan from the start.

Lucifer sat in the dark room the little boy occupied, shaped to resemble a bare-floor storage chamber, and listened for hours to his imagined mother.

_"He wouldn't hit you if you just did what he wanted."_

_"You keep getting on his bad side, he's a good man underneath."_

_"He only slaps you because you don't listen."_

_"If you were a better son, he wouldn't have to be so strict with you."_

_"Go apologize before you make it worse."_

_"You should be grateful he didn't draw blood."_

_"It's your fault he's like that."_

It wasn't just this one child. It was thousands, killed by diseases and hunger if they were lucky, by their bastard parents if not. Crowds of short little girls and boys with missing teeth, blaming themselves for being abused, for being bullied, cast out and ostracized. 

An eleven-year old cutting her face over and over so she wouldn't tempt her brothers with her looks. 

A thirteen-year old burying her sibling who didn't survive the drought.

A nine-year old crying, just crying to no end, as his father kept beating him to death.

Immature minds exaggerating their every misdemeanor, wallowing in the ocean of black, suffocating guilt. 

A seven-year old who hang herself so she wouldn't be sold, even though it would save her family from starving. 

He couldn't look at them, their hollow eyes and silent acceptance that their deeds would never be forgiven. Children of alcoholics, abusers, cretins, children born to children too young to survive a pregnancy. 

When he crossed the gates of Hell, he was prepared for war. Lifted the chains with all his strength, burned the Pentecostal coin made from his blood and left feeling the children's empty eyes on his back.

He flew up until the ashen snow disappeared from the air, and higher, through the planes of reality, until the infinitely beautiful entrance of his old home shone bright light that his wings reflected. For the longest moment he just stared at the long line of souls waiting for admission, their deeds bare without the mortal flesh-suits covering them. All those with enough sense to convert seconds before dying, to repent out of fear, to feel deserving and filled with God's grace because they prayed really hard after committing their crimes.

Lucifer walked through them with disgust and they moved to the sides to avoid his wings, then closed up behind him, already drawn by the gift the benevolent Father bestowed on him. Uriel's welcome speech died on his mouth when he spotted him, a rare shocked expression as he backed away from the closed gate, looking for his siblings. Soon Castiel and Michael landed by his side, quickly joined by others, staring at his intimidating posture.

Did he strike fear in them now, or was it violent hatred? He didn't care, approaching them with painful determination.

"I need to speak to Father."

They looked at each other and Lucifer growled, grabbing a golden bar of the gate. A herd of sheep, lost without a voice to command them. 

"He has to hear me out. He has to stop it!"

"Father doesn't have to do anything." Amenadiel finally stepped up, face of a warrior and air of seniority. "Return to Hell, Samael, where is your place."

"Oh I will, brother", Lucifer snarled, eyes burning with eternal fire as he stared him down. "Once He looks me in the face and says it was just. That they are all deserving of it. Once He admits how boundlessly cruel the source of All is."

Amenadiel's dark wings flared up and he rose, ready to strike him down. Behind him, angels stirred and murmured between each other, like bystanders mesmerized by an accident, yet unwilling to interfere. 

"You are not to question Father's orders, but to obey them", Remiel spoke up, holding her spear threateningly. They didn't understand. They never saw it.

"The children must be protected!", Lucifer yelled, his unfurling wings pushing away confused human souls. Remiel took a step back against herself and Amenadiel attacked, but he dodged him easily, powered by anger only God's disregard for suffering unleashed in him. "They mustn't be damned!"

His brother paused mid-air, wary and suspicious. "What are you saying, Sam?"

He chuckled drily, shaking his head. Unbelievable. 

"Ask Him yourself. All of you, go and ask Him!" No one moved.

"Or let me through, if questioning His motives still angers Him so. I'm ready to take another Fall for you lot."

Amenadiel was ready to resume his attack when Gabriel descended, putting a hand on his shoulder and glaring daggers at the King of Hell.

"Our Father is merciful. Return to your domain now, Samael, for He has listened."

It could be a lie, not the first time God's Herald took initiative spinning a story to force him to step down. But he knew he could do nothing more here, against all of God's children ready to maul him for disgracing their front step with his presence. He turned around and heard Amenadiel land slowly behind him, escorting him out.

"Be at peace, Sam", he said softly, as if showing him grace, and scoffed at his pity.

"It's Lucifer now." 

And when the cold darkness of Hell enveloped him again, he noticed the chains from the tall gates disappeared, free for the souls to pass through. One day, he may convince them to.

All of his underaged prisoners were gone. He never saw a child enter again. 

* * *

He didn't hate children. He just couldn't risk rubbing off on them, tainting their feeble minds with his darkness. One pang of guilt carried through to adolescence and they would damn themselves over his Father's rules, over His endless cruelty at defying His authority.


	2. Chapter 2

They were investigating the murder of Andrew Russell, a lower-class car salesman found just outside his own house with a slashed throat. It should have been an open-and-shut case, but the evidence was slipping right out of their grasp, with suspicions on his wife Glenda remaining circumstantial.

The only potential witness was the couple's five-years old daughter, Katie. But coming from a dysfunctional family that managed to stay out of CPS's radar for years, she was trained to never speak to strangers of anything that happened behind closed doors. Three child psychologists tried and failed to get her to share, and without any psychical abuse or clear signs of trauma, it was difficult to build a solid case. It didn't help that the inside of the Russell house was bathed in bleach before the police arrived and Glenda had no prior records nor reputation for violence. 

"The neighbors didn't hear anything", Chloe sighed, going through the statements again. "These kinds of communities protect each other and distrust the police by default. They don't want little Katie to go into the system even if it's the best that can happen to her." 

Lucifer glanced at her over a tiny tower of stacked office supplies, feigning indifference. "Do you really think that?"

Chloe reached to grab a highlighter and the entire construction threatened to fall, causing him to hiss impatiently. 

"If she was abused at home, then yes." She needed a breakthrough if Andrew's killer was to ever face justice. "Children need to be protected, even from their own parents, if said parents fail in their duty."

He supported the build with a strategically placed stapler and moved his hands away, watching it waver for a moment before standing still. 

"Given that the system is any better", he muttered without a smile.

"Than leaving a kid alone with a potential murderer?", Chloe retorted, fixing her messy bun. "I'll take the chances. But nothing can be done unless we get one of them to talk." 

She stood up, pushing slightly against the desk, enough for Lucifer's office Jenga tower to fall. He shrugged and rised after her, not bothering to pick up scattered supplies.

"Do you think you could get the truth out of Katie?", Chloe wondered, guiding them to the interrogation room. "I mean, hypothetically, your powers could help her open up." She imagined it for a moment, then distracted herself with an idea that made her smirk. "Though if you used them on Trixie, I doubt she'd want anything other than chocolate cake." 

Lucifer stopped abruptly in the middle of the corridor and she turned around to meet his furious glare. "I would never", he uttered, deeply offended, and it made her pause.

"Hey, what's wrong?" 

He scoffed, fixing his handcuffs distractedly. "Do you really think I would ever do that to a child?"

"I didn't..." She stared back at him in confusion, surprised by the sudden anger. "I was talking about the mojo thing. It's not like children really hide their desires, so I guess it wouldn't be necessary..."

"You misunderstand how it works, detective", he interrupted, stepping closer to her. "Premature minds are different. They don't yet know to hide what they long for." His voice changed and he spoke with strange, strained intonation. "The things they hide are those they feel ashamed of. To draw them out is to cause them pain and I would _never_ do that."

Chloe moved back, taking a deep, controlled breath, as if it could calm them both. 

"I'm sorry, I... didn't know. And I wouldn't ask you to, child psychologists handle those cases." Lucifer looked away from her in obvious distress, but remained silent. She carefully touched his shoulder, grounding him for what was about to come. "Let's go now, this is Glenda's last questioning. We have to do right by her remaining family."

* * *

Open-and-shut. Everything pointed to the wife killing her deadbeat husband and they only needed a glimpse, a shred of malice and intend to support the established motive. But cracking the small, resigned woman in front of them, covering her bruised hands with long sleeves, seemed cruel; Chloe approached her softly, sitting next to her, while Lucifer lingered in the back of the room.

"Did you kill him, Glenda?", she asked gently, putting the closed case file down on the metal table. The woman didn't meet her eyes; she couldn't afford a lawyer, but couldn't afford to break either.

"I didn't want him dead." 

She didn't say no.

"Then what did you want?", Lucifer asked from under the wall, barely meeting her gaze. "What did you desire more than anything, than your dear husband's life?", he continued, stalking towards her, but his usual amusement was absent; he didn't enjoy charming her in the slightest.

"I wanted him to keep looking at me", Glenda replied, lost in the daze his mojo caused. Lucifer inhaled sharply, trying to move back, sensing what she was about to say, and Chloe followed his movement, perplexed. 

"Why did you want him to look at you?", she pushed, not catching up, used to ignoring her partner's eccentric reactions. "What happened?"

The small woman fixed her eyes on her after Lucifer retreated to the shadows by the wall. "Because he was drunk", she said quietly through her shattering resolve. "I was drinking with him, so he'll have less, and it was... it was easier to take him if I was buzzed, too."

Chloe clenched her jaw, bracing herself for the story. She heard it too many times not to know what Glenda just decided to confess, even if she didn't understand why it made Lucifer so avoidant.

"My Katie was playing, just playing house on the floor, and he kept looking. So I took my top off, but she was pretending to be a cat and he looked." 

The last piece of the puzzle fell into place and it felt like all air was sucked out of the room.

The interior felt too well-maintained now, too clean, with its painted walls, government-approved furniture and high-end surveillance system funded by the taxpayers. Underpaid cops were privileged enough to pass judgment on Glenda Russell, to hunt for evidence against her when they never saw her old kitchen with a broken stove, never felt the despair of addiction and financial insecurity, of only looking forward to the next day, never beyond.

"He asked her if she wanted milk and he stood up, so I moved in front of him, but he shoved me away." She touched her split right brow, held together by two butterfly bandages, but there was no fear in her face.

Not the first time. Did she even remember the first? Was she surprised, or did it only remind her of her friends' stories, of family home? 

"He said, he said he just wanted to play together and he'll give her milk, 'cause Katie was a cat, and cats... A-and I wanted him to look at me, but he shoved me again, and the bottle broke, and..." 

And the pain didn't matter.

* * *

They had enough evidence now and allowed the two officers on duty to escort Glenda out. She was silent and distant, mourning the loss of her daughter. Even with claims of justified defense when she slashed her husband's carotid artery, failing to report the crime and disposing of evidence put her at the disadvantage. Next time she will see Katie she may already be an adult with a family of her own. 

Chloe returned to her desk, clenching the manila case folder, Lucifer following her in silence. She sat down to organize the paperwork one last time, composing herself. 

"I had my fair share of domestic violence before I made detective, you know", she said, staring at her desk. "I got calls like that all the time. And yet... it still touches me." She could feel him looking and shook her head. "Maybe it shouldn't."

"It definitely should", he replied quietly, unscrewing his flask, though more to keep his hands busy than to enjoy the drink.

"Is that why... never children?" Chloe glanced up, but his gaze was buried in the past, unfocused. "The dark desires they hide, it's too often that, isn't it?"

He nodded absentmindedly, eons away from her.

"Is Glenda's husband... in Hell now?"

Lucifer blinked, brushing the memory away.

"He should be", he replied solemnly, hiding the flask and fixing his jacket. 

He didn't say yes.


End file.
